Three decades before the Civil War, the great Prussian strategist Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) argued that in a country involved in an insurrection or torn by internal dissension, the capital, the chief leader, and public opinion constitute the Schwerpunkt, or center of gravity, where collapse has the greatest chance of occurring. Read more >>

The South had been given [by its victory at Manassas on July 21, 1861] the chance to end the war with a single additional blow. All that was needed was the resolve—and, above all, the leadership—to bring it off. Read more >>

Many observers have concluded that the accident of the Union’s discovering Lee’s order [showing the wide scattering of his forces] determined the outcome of the Maryland campaign. If Lee’s order had not been lost, the thinking went, the South might have succeeded. Read more >>

Lee’s decision to concentrate the army at Gettysburg was senseless. Even without the scouting of Stuart’s horsemen, he had attained a superb strategic position by his march into Pennsylvania. Read more >>

Union General Joseph Hooker had placed a large force on Lee’s left or western flank at Chancellorsville. He expected General Sedgwick to hold down Lee at Fredericksburg, a few miles east, but Sedgwick had done little. Read more >>

While Federal troops were driving the Rebels off Matthews’s Hill [during the Battle of First Manassas, July 21, 1861], Jackson had moved onto Henry House and ordered his artillery battery and that of Capt. John D. Imboden, already on Henry House, to take position in the center of the hill crest. Read more >>

[General Joseph E.] Johnston’s First Virginia Brigade was commanded by Thomas Jonathan Jackson, a thirty-seven-year old West Pointer from western Virginia who also had distinguished himself in Mexico but who had resigned from the army in 1851 to become professor of artillery tactics, optics, mechanics, and astronomy at Virginia Military Institute (VMI). Jackson had been promoted to brigadier general only a month before [June 1861] and was, like most of the other generals on both sides, an unknown quantity in regard to the upcoming battle [of First Manassas, July 21, 1861]. Read more >>

On the morning of May 30, 1862, Stonewall Jackson’s advance troops were making much sound and fury around Harpers Ferry. But it was all a sham. Ever since the battle of Winchester, Jackson had been pressing his quartermasters to get into wagons the mountain of supplies and arms that had fallen to the Confederacy, since there was no railway between Winchester and Strasburg. Read more >>

[On April 10, 1865, at Appomattox], Lee issued his farewell address: "After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources." Read more >>

A shattered wreck of a battery appeared in the streets of Sharpsburg. A few dirty, staggering gunners followed the exhausted horses. The battery had fought valiantly all day, and had suffered severe losses. Read more >>

The Army of Northern Virginia was world-famous long before the retreat to Appomattox. But it was during this march toward surrender and defeat that the legend was born that this had been one of the greatest armies of all time. Its early victories had been stupendous, but the army’s behavior in these final days aroused a new understanding of how far beyond arms and power that heroism and dedication can carry a body of men. Read more >>

Confederate President Davis put his faith in the importance of "King Cotton" to the immense textile industries of Britain and the continent. He believed the major European powers would intervene, force the North to accept Southern independence, and thereby save their economies. Read more >>

Robert E. Lee was among many commanders on both sides who did not recognize that a new weapon, the Minié-ball rifle musket, had revolutionized the battlefield and made traditional military tactics obsolete. Read more >>

[Robert E.] Lee is one of the supreme examples in history of a commander who disregards the circumstances he finds himself in, and continues on a policy that is bound to result in disaster. Read more >>